Thursday, July 26, 2012

Actors aren’t the only ones trying to make it in Hollywood.…At
twenty-three, Ruth Saunders left her childhood home in Massachusetts and
headed west with her seventy-year-old grandma in tow, hoping to make it
as a screenwriter. Six years later, she hits the jackpot when she gets
The Call: the sitcom she wrote, The Next Best Thing, has gotten
the green light, and Ruthie’s going to be the showrunner. But her dreams
of Hollywood happiness are threatened by demanding actors,
number-crunching executives, an unrequited crush on her boss, and her
grandmother’s impending nuptials.

The Next Best Thing is a fun novel full of Hollywood
antics. This book takes us on Ruthie's journey - one that has
definitely not always been easy - and we follow her while she takes an
enormous risk to chase her dream all the way to Hollywood
where she hopes to produce the television show she's written based loosely
on her life with her grandmother.

Weiner knows Hollywood
and the television industry first hand from her sitcom, 'The
State of Georgia', which was produced last year and then cancelled
after just one season. It was fascinating from this novel to see the how
little a finished television product might resemble the original script, the
plot, characters and ideas. And wow, do I ever have a lot more respect for all
those involved in producing a television show. I was exhausted just reading
about it!

For the most part, I don't get sucked into all the Hollywood
hype or the gossip so it surprised me when I became so invested in this novel. For
anyone with a keen interest in Hollywood,
they may very well enjoy this novel even more.

Ruthie and her grandmother's down to earth personalities
were juxtaposed against all of Hollywood's narcissism,
head games, egos, and money and it’s easy to see how Ruthie's dreams may become
derailed. I enjoyed cheering for her. You can't help but root for
her, even when she makes questionable decisions. I cringed along with her,
adored her naiveté and even wanted to shake her a few times. She has a
complicated past, she's kind, misguided and doubts herself often, but she had a
kind heart and I really wanted to see her happy in the end.

The Next Best Thing is heavy with flashbacks, especially the
first half of the novel, but Weiner somehow makes them work. She draws a marvelous portrait of Ruthie's relationship with her grandmother (who was
so spunky - I loved her character!) during the years after the horrific
car accident that killed her parents and left Ruthie disfigured as a
toddler, as well as their cross country journey to Hollywood.
Novels rarely have me shedding tears early in the story, however, around thirty
pages in, Weiner has me chocked up. It’s a scene when Ruthie realizes at a
young age that the scars on her face were permanent and that she would
never resemble the characters on TV that she loved so much. She writes one
sentence in the journal her grandmother keeps prodding her to keep, and then
we're privy to her grandmother’s reaction. I crumpled, tears dripping.

Although I loved this novel, there were some elements that I
had trouble with. At times Ruthie’s age confused me. I thought she was in her
twenties, but then certain references brought me back to my childhood which
confused me because I’m older). There were also references to laptops in high
school classrooms in her freshman year which tossed me another curveball. That
would have been fourteen years ago based on her age of twenty eight and I’m
fairly certain that wouldn’t have been the norm and the school she was at
wasn’t described as a wealthy private school either. Nitpicky, I know, but
these things distract me and detract from my reading experience. I think if her
age was mentioned earlier it would have helped. The other thing was that
because I was aware of Weiner’s failed sitcom, I couldn’t help but wonder how
much of the story was autobiographical and whether she was taking shots at the
industry with the Hollywood-type caricatures she portrays or if this was
fiction.

Regardless, I still enjoyed The Next Best Thing. Not as much as Good
in Bed, which is one of my all time favourites, but more so than her latest
few. And I'm sure if you go for all the Hollywood
hype, you may like it even more. As always, I look forward to more from
Jennifer Weiner.